A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? Read online

  Inside, I must remember now, since I am wearing uniform, to give a full-hearted, snapped-up salute. Superintendent Ghorpade kindly informed me that, out of uniform, simply clicking heels sharply together suffices. But in uniform, as I was on that first day, a salute is always required.

  Now, in answer to the ACP’s Well, Inspector? I will have to tell him, altogether briefly and unhesitatingly, what it is I have, just only this minute, found in my waste bin.

  Into Ghote’s mind then came the image of the altogether imposing cabin he would have to enter, vividly as a film in a cinema hall. But not any of the black-and-white films I mostly have seen. No, this is in sharpest colour, tinged with menacing underlights.

  First, the huge curving desk, with six chairs – if I counted right – lined up in front of it. Its densely black covering protected against sweaty hands by a wide sheet of gleamingly polished glass. The three telephones waiting on it, each differently coloured. Beside them, a set of four presentation pens juts up from a rose-pink marble holder, clearly never intended to be other than a sign of prestige. Then, directly in front of the ACP himself, there is that very, very large leather-cornered blotter, its absorbent white paper unsmirched by a single ink-spot.

  Beside that, the film in my memory shows, there are two neat piles of round silvery paperweights, half a dozen of them, altogether necessary to keep in place under the beating air from those whirring seven-bladed fans above, the documents the ACP may need to consult. And, yes, each of the topmost little weights, I saw, was incised with the letters RVD, the ACP’s own initials.

  But what of ACP Ramprasad Divekar himself? I can hardly put a face to him, so overwhelmed I was then under that fierce shelling, and altogether worried as I am now by the prospect before me. Yes, he has grey, grey eyes. Or does he? And does he have, even, a moustache? Or is it that I am just only imagining the sort of moustache he ought to have? Bristling, well-trimmed to the last whisker, and angry? He was, I cannot forget, blastingly angry when I stood in front of him before because of my too-polite tap on his door.

  But in two minutes only, less even, at the top of these winding stairs, I will be facing, once again, the man himself. There to tell him about the appalling discovery I have made. So now … now it is a matter only of going up these steps to the balcony and along to that door. Then to look through its single thick glass pane before giving the door a tap, altogether hard enough to be heard. Yet not too hard.

  But no … no. No, there is something vital I must do before I am at all reporting. I must at once go back into my cabin and replace every item of the evidence just where it was before. Everything must be exactly at the same spot it was when I leant down to get hold of the typewriter and saw the frothy falooda mess of the Matunga News. There will be photographs to be taken. There must be also the possibility of fingerprints on the bin itself. And, oh God, there may, too, somewhere on those blood-marked newspaper sheets, be my own prints. They will almost certainly be also on the shopping bag’s handles that I was holding so tightly.

  A bad mistake for me. I should have known better than to touch those handles, even if I was at that moment not at all knowing I was about to discover Bikram’s severed head. But perhaps even Sergeant Moos, Number Ek expert though he is, will be unable to lift even one decent print from among all that mess.

  He turned and hurried back into the desecrated cabin, sweating suddenly with relief that out of sheer necessity the moment of confrontation above had been postponed. Then, checking that the batwing doors had swung firmly closed behind him, he snatched from his desk the wooden ruler he always used to underline any important phrases in the schedule, something Patil’s typewriter never managed, and sliding it through the two twine handles of the bloodied shopping bag he raised it, and, with the most delicate care, replaced it in the waste bin, still waiting in its dark corner, not moved by so much as an inch from its original position.

  One last fierce inspection. Yes, surely the newspaper sheets concealing poor Bikram’s tangled, scurf-encrusted hair are now just as they were when I first lifted out the bag.

  And left my fingerprints all over its handles, if nowhere else.

  That will be something I will have to confess to. Confess – it would be best – in just a few minutes’ time to bristling moustached Mr Divekar. Or not bristling moustached.

  THREE

  A tap on the door with the square glass panel in it. A good loud tap. Oh, my God. Too noisy? Have I gone too far in other direction?

  But there came a barked ‘Come!’

  Straightening his bony shoulders, Ghote turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  Yes, I did at least get that right. Exactly right. So, four smart steps onwards to bring myself up to the edge of the desk, just between two of the chairs arrayed in front of it. Now, a truly smart salute. Right hand swiftly-swiftly to peak of cap. Did I tip it sideways? Yes. No. No, no, it did not move. Count: ek, do, teen.

  Now, lower my hand. Lower it, for heaven’s sake. Oh, but I have. I have. And Mr Divekar has said nothing, thank God. And now, I am face to face with him. No, no sign of a moustache. Just a steel rigidity of taut flesh beneath the sharp jutting nose. A truly British-style stiff upper lip, a grey-tinged barrier.

  The whole of his body, for all that he is simply sitting in his well-polished, high-backed, red-leather chair, is, Ghote could not help feeling, just as stiffly upright as if he were standing to attention in front of the Governor of Maharashtra State himself. And those grey eyes that … yes, that glare out from under the fiercely tangled eyebrows, seem as incapable of showing understanding as any two glass marbles from some street urchins’ game.

  ‘Inspector Ghote?’ The eyebrows sharply descended. ‘Why is it that you have presented yourself, unsummoned, to my cabin? When I consider you fit to be relieved of bandobast duties and ready to take on one of the cases I might have assigned to young Patil – great loss to the Branch, first-class material – I will have you informed.’

  ‘But, sir—’

  Ghote forced his lips tightly shut. There could be no buts in the face of the Assistant Commissioner.

  ‘Well, man? I asked why you have presented yourself in front of me.’

  Now. So now, after all, it must be told.

  ‘Sir, sitting in my cabin down below, I discovered just only a few minutes ago … in my waste bin, sir … sir, the cut-off head of my peon, Bikram.’

  Is there some expression of surprise, even of shock, in those two grey eyes? Ghote could not bring himself to look at them directly enough to be sure. In the blank silence that appeared to have greeted his announcement all he could do was to transfer his gaze, without noticeably moving his own eyes or head, from the ACP’s stony glance off to the further reaches of the big room behind.

  There, high on the wall, is the big blackboard, up to which every morning the ACP’s peon must climb in order to alter the dispositions made the previous day and show, to the last man, the dispositions for the day ahead. The dispositions I was working out myself. Yes, I can clearly see the names of the dogs I was entering on my big sheet not so long ago this very morning. There they are, still, as they should be, the same as they were back in British days, if not attached to the same animals. Caesar, Captain, Rover. All as it ought to be. And, oh, yes, I can see, too, the fat white-headed pin that means Bandobast Duties, placed firmly against my own starkly new name at the very foot of the list of officers.

  ‘The head? The severed head – did you say, Inspector? – of your peon? So that’s why all morning the fellow has been absent when summoned.’

  Mr Divekar had spoken at last, if not in words Ghote had expected to hear.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he managed to bring out by way of a reply. ‘And I …’

  His voice failed him. From a side door he had seen the ACP’s own Thomas enter the huge room. But not carrying the stool he must use to get up high enough on the blackboard to make his daily changes. Instead, held rock steady in his right hand, there was the prettily flowere
d china teacup and saucer of the ACP’s mid-morning refreshment. For one moment Ghote’s mind switched down below to his own saucerless cup with the sharp-edged chip in it that always came just where his lip met the crudely coloured earthenware.

  The cup that Bikram had been accustomed to plonk down on the desk, generally on top of a vital document. Dead, head-severed, rum-reeking Bikram.

  But Mr Divekar, apparently heedless of Thomas entering, had more to say.

  ‘Very well, Inspector, your peon’s head – if I can believe you – appears to have got into your waste bin. But why in God’s name have you come bothering me with that? What do you think it has got to do with me? Just dispose of the damn thing, man. Dispose of the damn thing and get on with your work. Why haven’t I seen your final list of changes? Good God, it’s halfway through the morning and Thomas hasn’t been able to make a single alteration to the board there.’

  ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Sir, just as I was about to begin typing out the final version I was interrupted. By, sir, that discovery. In my bin, sir.’

  Standing there, frozen to attention, Ghote, all thought of the confession about the prints he might have left on the shopping bag wiped from his mind, could do nothing else but watch Thomas as he approached the ACP’s desk in a way so stealthy that he might have been an assassin about to strike.

  Now he seemed to be fixedly regarding a little round shiny leather mat, as black as the black covering of the huge desk, as if, by putting down on it the fragile weight of the cup, a bomb planted directly under the ACP’s tall red-leather chair would be instantly triggered.

  The forefinger of Thomas’s left hand was sliding towards the mat. It touched it. Then it began quarter-inch by quarter-inch to push it sideways as if it had been placed by the smallest amount in the wrong position.

  ‘Inspector,’ Mr Divekar snapped out, apparently not even having seen Thomas, ‘however glowing was the recommendation I had of you as being a proper officer to join Crime Branch, if you cannot attend to the first simple duty I have given to you, then you are not likely to be of much use to me in future. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I mean no, sir,’ Ghote jabbered out, his mind obscurely wrestling with the notion that he should warn the ACP of his peril, perhaps lean across the wide desk and give him, chair and all, a mighty life-saving shove. Or should I wheel round, fling myself on Thomas and knock him to the floor?

  But Thomas had put down the cup exactly on the black mat’s centre where plainly each day at this time it should rest, and no explosion had followed. It had been placed, Ghote now realised, where in no circumstances could any vigorous gesture the ACP might make send its tea spilling over the desk’s immaculate glass surface. And now Thomas was withdrawing, silently as if on his feet were not chappals but the wheels of roller skates, muffled.

  Ghote brought himself back to reality.

  ‘But, sir,’ he said, quietly argumentative, ‘that severed head has been put into the very heart of Crime … sir, into one of the cabins in Crime Branch itself. Sir, isn’t it a case for Crime Branch to investigate?’

  ‘The head of a damn peon, Inspector? To be dealt with by Crime Branch? A branch set up specifically to investigate murders and other serious crimes involving persons of importance and influence? Crime Branch, that I, myself, am going to drive to a new pitch of efficiency. An example to forces all over India, to forces all over the whole damn world. Crime Branch, to be used to deal with the death of an appalling scheduled caste peon? What are you saying?’

  ‘But, sir, that head is evidence of murder. And, sir, even if it is not that of a person of influence, sir, should at least our nearest police station be asked to investigate? Sir, Tilak Marg PS?’

  ‘And have this whole place trampled over by a lot of heavy-booted idiots from there? Inspector Ghote, you still have a lot to learn, a hell of a lot. Dismiss.’

  Just dispose of the damn thing. Those had been Mr Divekar’s own words, Ghote thought back in his little cabin, when I said I had found Bikram’s head hacked from his body. The thought boomed and bounced in his own head, wanting an answer.

  Yes, he felt, I can smell the blood still. Except, of course, I cannot. I cannot really. Yes, I smelt it when I put my nose down close to the waste bin when I first saw that stained copy of the Matunga News covering up the far worse sight below. But by now the fan up there, almost useless though it is, has dissipated the last traces of it. Yet that smell of blood is in my mind still. In my mind, and crying out, not for vengeance, but for justice. Yes, Bikram has been murdered, and whoever chances to meet such a fate, however high or low in the ranks of society, deserves to have their death investigated, their murderer found and duly punished.

  What did the ACP expect me to do when he said what he did? To take hold, once again, of the handles of that shopping bag, to haul it out and call for my peon to— But I have no peon now to call. My peon is deceased. His head, his head itself, is where, not so many minutes ago, I was carefully replacing it as evidence, as vital evidence to be preserved at all costs, in that very bin in its corner, positioned where sitting at my desk I could throw anything into it without even looking.

  So what am I expected to do now? To take hold, myself, once again of those two handles at the sides of the bag, lift out Bikram’s head and … And do what?

  Dispose of it. To dispose of Bikram’s head because he was no more than a ‘damn peon’. Very well, calling him that is what many, many more high-caste people than Mr Divekar might do. And, in fact, I am not, as it happens, knowing precisely what caste Mr Divekar is. Names ending in kar are typical up and down the whole length of Maharashtra. But, however wide was the gap between Mr Divekar and rum-reeking Bikram, between Bikram and myself also, Bikram was after all a man. One fellow man to myself. And to Mr Divekar.

  More, he was a man, one human being, who was horribly done to death. You could hardly be more brutally killed than by having your head hacked off from your neck. And Bikram was, however much a disgracefully idle peon, a citizen of the Republic of India, the new and still young Republic of India. He was entitled to have his murder as thoroughly investigated as that of anyone among those ‘persons of influence’, Mr Divekar’s own description. Bikram is entitled to have his death properly investigated by, at least, some competent officer from Tilak Marg PS, an officer of at least assistant inspector rank, as I was myself until the beginning of this month of Chaitra.

  But I have been instructed, ordered, not to contact Tilak Marg PS.

  So what to do? What to do? Because I am going to do something. Something more than just getting rid of that awkward piece of evidence.

  Yes, this is it. I have, without at all thinking about it, decided.

  I have decided that I, Inspector Ghote, an officer of Crime Branch, Bombay Police, am going to investigate, however much I am lacking authority to do it, the death of one Bikram, a peon.

  FOUR

  Ghote had hardly come to his decision to investigate, altogether on his own, the case of the murdered peon – a matter he saw at once as being just the sort of small affair that might, had it been somehow connected to some more serious affair, have been given to him as his first assignment in Crime Branch – than he remembered ACP Divekar in the big cabin above barking out, Why haven’t I seen your final list of changes? It’s halfway through the morning.

  Hastily he went over to his desk and stood in front of it searching for the rough copy of the schedule he had been about to type out when he had noticed the crammed state of his waste bin, soon followed by his discovery of Bikram’s severed head. Then there had come the thought that this was something that had to be reported at once to none other than the Head of Crime Branch.

  Damn it all, he said to himself as he looked in dismay at the memo slips and rough papers of his earlier changed and changed-about workings-out, why does everything on the desk have to be in so much of disorder? Impossible to find anything. But next moment he caught a saving glimpse of the large scrawled sheet he had been about to commit to n
eat typing as it had come to him that, however much apparently he had been mistaken, Bikram’s murder was something he should report to Mr Divekar.

  He went round and pulled his chair away from under the desk’s kneehole to where its back all but touched the wall behind. He managed then, as always, just to squeeze down on it. Now, with the vital sheet ready at his elbow, he twisted round and reached down, teeth clamped in determination, to where Inspector Patil’s keys-jamming typewriter still stood mutely next to the waste bin. The bin with, back inside it, the shopping bag and murdered Bikram’s head.

  One last fierce effort to eject with a single explosive puff from his nostrils any last possible traces of the odour of blood, and he hauled the typewriter from its place, twisted himself back round and dropped the heavy machine, with an all-too-familiar thump, into place.

  Now, fast as I can, type out that list. With no mistakes.

  Whether it was the violence with which he struck the keys, or actually his very lack of violence as he typed, in only a few minutes his task was accomplished. Rapidly he read over the sheet. No, not a single error, not even in the spelling of his own name, a mistake he frequently made. To his repeated surprise.

  Now to call Bik— No, not to call Bikram. Never again to summon Bikram with repeated bang after bang on the shiny brass button of my bell.

  Instead, he picked up his phone and succeeded, immediately, in getting hold of Thomas.

  ‘I have one urgent document for Mr Divekar.’

  ‘I will be down directly, Inspector. I know ACP Sahib is waiting.’

  How different from … But do not think such thoughts.

  As Thomas appeared, a new awful idea came to Ghote. Will he, so smart and so clean-looking as he is, be struck at once by a still just lingering smell of blood? The smell I myself can no longer detect? He looked, hard as he possibly could, at the fellow’s face as he came towards the desk. Surely what is hidden in the waste bin, Bikram’s head, Bikram’s head, Bikram’s head, must, even if only to the smallest degree, still be smelling of blood, however long ago blood ceased to flow from those severed veins, however little I myself am still aware of it?